The Sea, The Sea opens Chef’s Table, an innovative fine dining seafood catch in Hackney

Seafood lovers are in for a treat as The Sea, The Sea opens its Chef’s Table at Acton Mews, Hackney. Led by Executive Chef Leandro Carreira, the fine dining facility will serve an omakase-style tasting menu from an open kitchen. 

Reservations are currently being taken for October and November, having sold out its September sessions. Serving 12 guests per sitting, in an intimate counter styled arrangement, the opening menus feature aged Turbot, Horse Mackerel and an intriguing Langoustine ‘wedding cake’. Dishes will change regularly in line with the daily catch, and in response to the micro-seasonality that the UK has to offer. But this is what we know so far…

Aged turbot, hot dog pods, honeycomb tomatoes
Turbot is dry-aged in-house, then cooked on a Japanese Konro grill and dressed with four types of vinegar, including house-made bread vinegar, and served with grilled hot dog pods (an extra-sweet variety of pea) and honeycomb tomatoes.

Horse mackerel, pine nut, sake, shallots
Horse Mackerel is cured, then lightly grilled and served with a sauce made from pine nuts cooked in mirin and sake.

Langoustine ‘Wedding Cake’
A year in development, the dish is a seaweed ‘egg cake’ baked and seasoned with Togarashi, and stuffed with smoked langoustines. The cake is then glazed in homemade almond milk and topped with langoustine ‘floss’ before being sliced and served in front of the guests.

Wines are curated by Renato Costa, general manager of the Chelsea branch. “For the chef’s table, we have focused on European wines and regions where water has a great impact on the terroir. We champion small family producers for their style, philosophy and dedication in the vineyard,” he says.

Serving 12 guests per sitting, in an intimate counter styled arrangement, the opening menus feature aged Turbot, Horse mackerel and an intriguing Langoustine ‘wedding cake’…

The Chef’s Table builds on the legacy set by the Seafood Bar at their original site in Chelsea. The larger workspace at the Hackney site has allowed for a more expansive approach to the menu. The small ageing cabinet in Chelsea has been expanded into a large walk-in space at Hackney, and live shellfish are held in special filtration tanks on-site. 

Set within the railway arches, the space is designed as an immersive experience where diners will pass through the wholesale and product development operations en route to the Chef’s Table. A glimpse behind the scenes as fishmongers process the morning’s catch, ahead of it being delivered to their wholesale customers that night. 

Interior designer Ben Wilkins has used the arched space to create a theatrical, intimate atmosphere. Apparently, the space will also host DJs on occasion, who will perform alongside the chefs from behind the counter.